mySupport...of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October

I nearly forgot, but October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I remembered when a very cute update on Yahoo.com's logo caught my attention with a little pink ribbon and cartoon women on either end of the word.

Websites, articles, support groups, newsletters, research, marathons and relays, and more will mark the month of October shedding light on breast cancer awareness. Here are a few interesting websites I found promoting breast cancer awareness in October:

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month website, which also had a shop where you can purchase mass quantities of items to motivate support.

The Breast Cancer Site Store: affordable and cute ways to show your support.

Lee National Denim Day: your office can participate in Denim Day and raise funds for breast cancer research and support.

The Pink Ribbon Shop: selling items for showing off your support of breast cancer awareness. (This site looks great because you can buy individual items, that would make great gifts as well!)

The Promise Shop at Susan G. Komen for the Cure

The BC Mall has cute ideas for fundraising for cancer support, as well as items worth wearing or using to show your personal support.

Have you found any special websites or products that offer support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Share your ideas; I'd love to share them. Together, we can promote a better future for breast cancer.

myAwareness

I've noticed that decorative forms of cancer awareness have almost become part of mainstream fashion. Is it a bittersweet reality that supporting cancer research and awareness has become popular? Or is it about time?

However you feel, if you or a loved one are going through cancer, sometimes displaying your support of cancer awareness is the only thing you feel control over. By wearing jewelry or clothing, or decorating your car with magnets and stickers, you make it easy for others to ask about your cause, your cancer story. When we share our stories people going through cancer build hope, offer prayer, and share the burden.

On that note, I found breast cancer support items at a local dollar store. I've also seen beautiful items through Avon, Mary Kay, and even on QVC. Wear your story; you may change the future of cancer.

myDailyDose

"There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow." ~Orison Marden

Orison Marden, I learned was an inspirational author from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I was searching for cancer support websites and this quote caught my attention. I may have to research this author more to see if he has anything else worth sharing. :)

Today I wish you peace with your past and motivation to find the answers to your path ahead. Have hope, always. There is never regret in hoping for the best or expecting something better. With hope, there is however, the potential for miracles.

Have you had your daily dose of hope today?

myHarvest

I came upon this scripture today and wanted to share it's encouragement:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ~Galatians 6:9

What harvest are you trying to reap? Do you have faith that there is a harvest for your efforts in good?

I've often noticed that God is more often acknowledged under bad circumstances. Some people turn to Him for support, help, hope, others turn against Him for a lack of understanding His plan. Though He wants us to lean on Him when we are weak, He also needs us to believe He is there when we reap our harvests.

When God presents your harvest remember He is there in good times and in bad. Praise God for the blessings He gives you in answer to your prayer during hard times. Further, do not use your time of struggle to justify discontinued acts of good. Your harvest is promised to be bountiful and rewarding!

myDailyBlessings

About six months before my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer she began a journal in which she wrote down at least 5 things she found good in that day. This proved especially helpful as she pursued surgery and cancer treatments that wore her out and taxed her emotionally. Every day she would write a brief entry in what she called her Grateful Journal.

It's very easy to journal about things that are difficult or challenging, but looking back I am inspired by my mom's Grateful Journal. Instead of reading about all the hard and bad things in her life at that time, I enjoy reading the blessings she counted. Her list of blessings help her remember that there is always something to be thankful for.

Today my mom's blessings remind me to count the good in my life, especially when the bad is easier to see. Try changing your perspective by beginning a Grateful Journal of your own.

Here are my blessings today:

1. My puppy let me sleep in today
2. I took a good walk with my puppy and it wasn't too hot
3. Enjoying blogging as a new outlet and excuse to learn
4. Water is back on! :)
5. It's getting dark earlier and cool at night.

What are your blessings?

A Special Note:

It's hard to commemorate a day in history that many wish never happened, but today, on September 11th, a Tuesday, I honor those military and safety service men and woman who have served and given their life to defend our country to this day. God bless America and those who stand for it.

myFriend

My sister blog, La Donna Benedetta, posted this today and I felt it fit well here too:

There comes days when all I can think about is tomorrow...the future, the what-ifs, the uncertain. I have heard many times not to worry about tomorrow, but it never stuck until last year when several troubling events piled up around the same time.

It is part of human nature to try to plan and prepare for the future. While I believe that some amount of preparedness is healthy and helpful, it can also lead to a lack of faith not only in oneself to handle a situation, but also in God's plan for our tomorrows.

Tonight one of my best friends will be close in heart, prayer and thought as she tries to let tomorrow worry about itself.

~Dear Friend, find comfort in His word:

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." ~Matthew 6:34

myAdvice

After my mom passed away, an older (I say that because he was my parents' age) friend/co-worker I had at the time shared his best piece of comfort and advice. Bill S. said:

The best way to keep a person close after you lose them is to keep their memory alive by carrying on something you admire about them. Then when people compliment you for the action or trait or anything...you can know and share how you learned it.

I often think of this when I miss a loved one. Since her death, I catch myself doing little things, and sometimes bigger things, that she would have done, would have wanted to do, or always did. For instance, she was very open with people about how she loved them. I have shared my appreciation to many of whom I may never have expressed openly to before. Also, my mom would just laugh...people knew her laugh. I hear my mom in my laugh sometimes...and so do others. She loved to see the positive in everyday life, to love her family and the Lord, and enjoy small things like the "V" of flying geese, horses feeding, or a colorful sunset. It is a wonderful feeling to have someone comment on something I did or do and to be able to reply "thanks, my mom used to do that too." :)

I've applied this piece of advice after a few other loved ones passed. From my Grandpa G., I took his kind, "how do you do?" sense about him that made even strangers feel special. I try to remember to smile more often because he loved my smiles...he loved smiling. From my grandmother in-law, Ginger, I admire her tolerance, patience, and forgiveness. She handled life with so much grace and femininity, as well as strength and faith...I am trying to carry these on.

What do you remember and admire about a loved one who you lost? Is it something you can take as your own as a way to honor their life? What will you want for someone someday to admire and remember about you that they might take with them after you are gone?

myCrosses

Today a great friend invited me to a Women's Bible Study Breakfast at her church. The message was on depression and how to recover from the heavy cloud of depression using God's word and truth. The speaker made a point that when you are clouded by depression it is easy to feel like you're the only one with troubles. This is simply paraphrased, but what I took from it is that we all have crosses to bear, which we must find ways in God's strength and plan to carry.

She referenced the book of Job, in which he endured tragedy and basically fell into a depression, feeling that even his own existence was a mistake. In the end, God showed Job how even his small life was part of the beauty that God created in the world. Job was saved because he surrendered to God's plan, and most of all surrendered to the faith that God would take care of him.

Since cancer is so hard to anticipate or control, often I have felt, and have heard others, question about why a person developed cancer. Why them? Why now? Further, since I have known several loved ones to suffer and even die from cancer, all within a short period of time, it is easy to start wondering why I am a part of this suffering.

It's just one of my crosses, I concluded today. I think I've known this a while, having been raised to believe in God's plan, but it was so simply described today. In Him, I can have help carrying this cross and someday, in the clear perspective of heaven, I'll understand why I was woven into so many others' cancer stories.